http://cargocollective.com Catalina Ouyang Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:28:22 +0000 http://cargocollective.com en http://cargocollective.com/couyang/melancholia http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/melancholia Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:28:22 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 3252388 Adonis Leave 18 x 24 inches 2009 $600 graphite on paper <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/Caveat Amor.jpg" width="670" height="879" width_o="2000" height_o="2626" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/Caveat Amor_o.jpg" data-mid="16664902" border="0" align="left"/> Memento Mori: a purge 18 x 24 inches 2008 $600 graphite on paper <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/10.jpg" width="670" height="907" width_o="2048" height_o="2773" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/10_o.jpg" data-mid="16664911" border="0" align="left"/> The Bright and Cavernous Mind 14 x 17 inches 2009 sold graphite on bristol <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/The Bright and Cavernous Mind.jpg" width="670" height="851" width_o="1500" height_o="1907" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/The Bright and Cavernous Mind_o.jpg" data-mid="16664904" border="0" align="left"/> Institution 16 x 20 inches 2010 sold graphite on paper <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/13.jpg" width="670" height="844" width_o="1632" height_o="2056" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/13_o.jpg" data-mid="16664960" border="0" align="left"/> Precarious Creatures 16 x 20 (double-sided) 2011 price upon request graphite on paper <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/12.jpg" width="670" height="423" width_o="2048" height_o="1294" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252388/12_o.jpg" data-mid="16664900" border="0" align="left"/> Adonis Leave 18 x 24 inches 2009 $600 graphite on paper Memento Mori: a purge 18 x 24 inches 2008 $600 graphite on paper The Bright and Cavernous Mind 14 x 17... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/fleshloafs http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/fleshloafs Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:28:20 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 5061089 chiffon, hair, sponge, butter, glue 2013 <img src="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf1.jpg" width="670" height="530" width_o="2048" height_o="1622" src_o="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf1_o.jpg" data-mid="27138697" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf 2.jpg" width="670" height="920" width_o="2048" height_o="2813" src_o="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf 2_o.jpg" data-mid="27138667" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf 4.jpg" width="670" height="911" width_o="2048" height_o="2785" src_o="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf 4_o.jpg" data-mid="27138685" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf5.jpg" width="670" height="893" width_o="2048" height_o="2730" src_o="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf5_o.jpg" data-mid="27138804" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf7.jpg" width="670" height="924" width_o="2048" height_o="2824" src_o="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf7_o.jpg" data-mid="27138867" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf6.jpg" width="670" height="517" width_o="2048" height_o="1582" src_o="http://payload138.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/5061089/fleshloaf6_o.jpg" data-mid="27138851" border="0" align="left"/> chiffon, hair, sponge, butter, glue 2013 http://cargocollective.com/couyang/formative-sadnesses-a-memoir-in-buckets http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/formative-sadnesses-a-memoir-in-buckets Tue, 11 Dec 2012 01:08:15 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 4587228 plaster, shoe polish, ink, buckets december 2012 <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0198.jpg" width="670" height="290" width_o="2048" height_o="888" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0198_o.jpg" data-mid="24412813" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0195.jpg" width="670" height="893" width_o="2048" height_o="2730" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0195_o.jpg" data-mid="24412828" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0200.jpg" width="670" height="569" width_o="2048" height_o="1740" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0200_o.jpg" data-mid="24412829" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0201.jpg" width="670" height="275" width_o="1956" height_o="804" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0201_o.jpg" data-mid="24412832" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0211.jpg" width="670" height="564" width_o="2048" height_o="1726" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0211_o.jpg" data-mid="24412906" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0213.jpg" width="670" height="502" width_o="2048" height_o="1536" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0213_o.jpg" data-mid="24412907" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0214.jpg" width="670" height="534" width_o="2048" height_o="1633" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0214_o.jpg" data-mid="24412909" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0216.jpg" width="670" height="455" width_o="2048" height_o="1392" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0216_o.jpg" data-mid="24412910" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0217.jpg" width="670" height="490" width_o="2048" height_o="1499" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0217_o.jpg" data-mid="24412912" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0218.jpg" width="670" height="551" width_o="2048" height_o="1686" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0218_o.jpg" data-mid="24412914" border="0" align="left"/><img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0219.jpg" width="670" height="494" width_o="2048" height_o="1512" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0219_o.jpg" data-mid="24412916" border="0" align="left"/> the ex <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0190.jpg" width="670" height="780" width_o="2048" height_o="2384" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0190_o.jpg" data-mid="24412836" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0210.jpg" width="670" height="744" width_o="2048" height_o="2276" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0210_o.jpg" data-mid="24412865" border="0" align="left"/> just 2 kids in a 240p video that stupid origami engagement ring a hairy butt kit-kats at 2 am he cried with his pants at his ankles sweaty sleepovers played hooky on a Tuesday i was crying too much so I shut up behind the bleachers i lost $700 and a sea monkey the little stick was the wrong color the man-boy <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0191.jpg" width="670" height="778" width_o="2048" height_o="2379" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0191_o.jpg" data-mid="24412837" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0209.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0209_o.jpg" data-mid="24412864" border="0" align="left"/> the stranger said “you’re gorgeous” kissing the corners of closed bruised eyes like peter pan on prozac the most tender way to choke bite and slap an empty bus stop in the rain curtains open, sirens too loud, a Red line to catch i finished hard but finished second he was not well euphoria chills and eyes bloodshot cyber sex was not for me blonde stripe <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0192.jpg" width="670" height="810" width_o="2048" height_o="2475" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0192_o.jpg" data-mid="24412838" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0207.jpg" width="670" height="711" width_o="2048" height_o="2176" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0207_o.jpg" data-mid="24412862" border="0" align="left"/> too clever for my own good embarrassed spiteful i wished he weren’t nice rehearsing the booty call green ultra-ribbeds extra bumps of ketamine plan b: plan b sheets stained red and white guilty pretty things how to wreck a home in 30 minutes peeboy <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0193.jpg" width="670" height="820" width_o="1847" height_o="2263" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0193_o.jpg" data-mid="24412839" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0205.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0205_o.jpg" data-mid="24412861" border="0" align="left"/> there was too much adderall perfunctory lips and burt’s bees his clever inventions, myopic ingenuity a smile with eyes crinkling not vacant like usual he wet the bed and I fell in love i couldn’t help it his baritone lisp a gallic nose and a touching blush slippery hands in wet hair 12 hours thighs raw exasperated how silly of me to think the filmmaker <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0202.jpg" width="670" height="817" width_o="1856" height_o="2264" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0202_o.jpg" data-mid="24412844" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0203.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0203_o.jpg" data-mid="24412853" border="0" align="left"/> cherry red lips a basement in bushwick a tuft of hair under his belly button the bitterness of earwax soft hands like woodland creatures melancholic thrusts clumsy teeth and clammy palms ephemeral slow-burn comfort the station at 7th ave we both understood summer died and our smiles were fake the painter <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0189.jpg" width="670" height="807" width_o="2048" height_o="2469" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0189_o.jpg" data-mid="24412834" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0204.jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="2048" height_o="2048" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4587228/IMG_0204_o.jpg" data-mid="24412854" border="0" align="left"/> his sweat dripped his nostrils flared too much pale skin too soft twitching emotionally socially unstable i had no patience left squirming not to be loved trying to try, wanting to want forgot to say no (oops) we chain-smoked to avoid the words plaster, shoe polish, ink, buckets december 2012 the ex just 2 kids in a 240p video that stupid origami engagement ring a hairy butt kit-kats at 2 am he... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/being-well http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/being-well Tue, 11 Dec 2012 00:35:20 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 4589289 love looks mdf, steel, clothing, beer cans october 2012 <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4589289/love looks.jpg" width="670" height="558" width_o="960" height_o="800" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4589289/love looks_o.jpg" data-mid="24412580" border="0" align="left"/> safety bugs plaster, mdf, traffic cones, video december 2012 <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4589289/IMG_0187.jpg" width="670" height="833" width_o="1572" height_o="1956" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4589289/IMG_0187_o.jpg" data-mid="24412592" border="0" align="left"/> click through for video <img src="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4589289/safety bugs.jpg" width="600" height="540" width_o="600" height_o="540" src_o="http://payload114.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4589289/safety bugs_o.jpg" data-mid="24413200" border="0" align="left"/> love looks mdf, steel, clothing, beer cans october 2012 safety bugs plaster, mdf, traffic cones, video december 2012 click through for video http://cargocollective.com/couyang/friemds http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/friemds Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:30:31 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 4344816 2012 assistance: we had a sense of homelessness in the world of sam fox, the Immigration Department. we are in two separate buildings in three different halls of the expulsion is. we now have more than a month, is the result of the travel time, looking for green card residence results Coca Cola on his nose, what does it mean? It is a symbol of the Western lifestyle. It is a modernity handshake. We can learn from our culture, or, but there is no other country to return. Dilution effects as a global company, pop-culture, technology and communication faster, explosion, consumerism, emigration and immigration. Now, we want to see you oppressors and services. He didn't like the white gaze, but to buy. Or even stop signs are signs <img src="http://payload102.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4344816/friemds at arch.jpg" width="670" height="445" width_o="1534" height_o="1021" src_o="http://payload102.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4344816/friemds at arch_o.jpg" data-mid="22968967" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload102.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4344816/asdf friemdssize .jpg" width="670" height="670" width_o="1200" height_o="1200" src_o="http://payload102.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/4344816/asdf friemdssize _o.jpg" data-mid="23018854" border="0" align="left"/> 2012 assistance: we had a sense of homelessness in the world of sam fox, the Immigration Department. we are in two separate buildings in three different halls of... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/artless-loves http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/artless-loves Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:13:35 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 3252462 I must have been five or six when I first met the man who lived in my grandparents’ Hangzhou flat. I was told to call him Uncle, but in China, all men are called Uncle. In retrospect, it was silly of me to wonder—what on earth else would he be, seeing as he slept in the same room as my mother’s younger sister and strode around the apartment in his sheer blue briefs like he owned it? But at the time I had fully refused to believe that my own parents had done what parents do, and plus I had never seen the man and my aunt doing anything but arguing. And so I continued to wonder at his place in the household, too naive to understand about checking for wedding rings. I was a brat to him—my brother and I both, actually. I don’t know what Felix’s reasoning was, but I was mean, snappy, outright cruel, because I was put off by my peripheral attraction to the man. That was me at six years old—boys and men who stirred my heart with their broad shoulders or long freckled limbs reduced me to one of two things: a silent specter, constantly ducking away to hide my blush; or a bitch, to moonlight my embarrassment as belligerence. The man chain-smoked, talked too loudly, and had awful teeth—but he seemed tall then, and had a jarringly lithe body, all long torso and a back straight like a ruler. He needed a haircut and a good wash, but his cheekbones were sharp and I liked the shape of his manic smile, despite the teeth. I guess that’s another reason I didn’t think he could possibly be my aunt’s husband—because she was not pretty, had never been, and had already begun to fill out into the plumpness of advancing age. The man drove a beat-up truck, tiny and cramped, a Chinese brand. My little legs reached the floor in the front seat. The seats were black PVC, searing hot in the Hangzhou summer. The man drove Felix and me to a summer camp every morning. I climbed out every day with a mixture of mortification and pride, seeing other children arrive on bikes or in taxis—and me, with my big brother and my attractive chauffeur with the perennial cigarette and the car that wouldn’t give two fucks. The man played a game with me sometimes. I was little enough then. He would hold out his big, callused palms in front of him and I would put my hands on his, and with a grunt he would lift me up using mostly the power in his veiny forearms. It was a mutual effort, as I had to keep my balance—but I was a gymnast then. There was another game—something like arm wrestling, but with our foreheads. We would knock our heads together, pressing harder and harder until one of us went blind from the pain. He won every time; I liked that he never let me win. And despite my outward protests and pronounced disgust, I liked his rancid breath, his bloodshot eyes furrowed in mock concentration. When I came back to Hangzhou the next year, the man wasn't there. The truck had been sold. I didn’t ask, and no one mentioned him. As it turned out, he was now living at the internet bar he owned with my aunt. They had moved locations four times since starting business. Their first location had been lovely; my grandfather—who is now mostly deaf and senile—had spent half a year singlehandedly refurbishing the two levels, as well as the connecting staircase. He had been in the middle of working on another room when they lost their lease and were forced to move. I did not see the man again properly until I was perhaps twelve or thirteen. Twelve, I think—I had been exceedingly thin and self-conscious that year, dieting and running neurotically. The man came to the flat to pick up keys to the internet bar. I hardly recognized him at first. He seemed so much shorter, but that of course was because I had grown. But his shoulders had taken to sloping, and he had gotten a drooping belly. He looked sick, his eyes yellow, and smelled not like cigarettes but like apathy and death. When he grinned, I noticed he had a gold tooth. He called me over to play the lifting game. it was a sad joke—we both knew it wouldn’t work. Maybe he did it wanting to highlight the fact of how far away I’d grown in America, away from Hangzhou and my grandparents and all the things they had once understood about me. Up close, the man’s eyes were sunken, lids puffy and filled with burst capillaries. I would not see him again for six years. When I did,it was unexpected. The man—my uncle, as I had now had it confirmed—had become a figment of a rather distant past, one full of endless possibility and a resolute belief in impossibly pragmatic ambitions. For the past four years, I had left my grandparent’s flat in a commercial taxi, sometimes with my father, sometimes with my mother. I hated waiting in the heat, trying to hail a cab, running around slick with sweat, crossing busy highways towing luggage heavily laden with gifts of fake Chanel purses and Miu Miu pumps. This year, however, we waited for the car inside the flat. I was pleased by this development—finally Hangzhou had caught up with the world, you could actually call for a cab reservation, it was about fucking time. But when we got to the gate and a black Volkswagen was waiting for us, I thought—well not a cab,then maybe one of my father’s business associates? He had enough of those, and they all do personal favors for each other. The year before, one of his suppliers had personally driven me to my art class every morning; in return, my mother looked after the supplier’s daughter, whom he’d sent to boarding school in Connecticut. But it was my uncle who got out of the car and came to take my bags. My uncle, whom I’d pushed to the back of my memory along with all other people who had passed through my life and left few lingering consequences. My reaction was decidedly stupid—something inside me leapt, I smiled falteringly, I stammered a hello. My Mandarin had degenerated to something awful over the years. I was embarrassed. He looked almost as I had first seen him. The belly was gone, his hair was trimmed neatly. And he was driving a nice car. There were a million things I wanted to ask him—where had he been, what was he doing now that the internet bar had been sold, was this his car, had my aunt divorced him, did I seem different to him—but I kept silent, as always. His smile was familiar, but he was a relic who didn’t belong in my current life. My uncle drove my aunt and me the three hours to the Shanghai Pudong Airport, speaking only to confirm directions and to ask me if I was going to college. Ca-Ca, he called me. My toddler’s nick name. I ruminated silently about all the things he had done for my family and how ungrateful I had been in return—how ungrateful I still am. And I didn’t get to thank him. He dropped my aunt and me off at the departure terminal and was driving off before I had my bearings. My aunt had thought we would all have lunch together. I said there wasn’t time, even though there was. I couldn’t bear it, eating with him there—it was too personal and too involving of all the people I had been and the things I had forgotten, not deliberately but just as it goes. I tell myself, I’ll thank him next year. Or the year after that—as soon as I see him, I’ll thank him. Chances are, though, I’ll be six years old again and silent. He will ask me more questions about college, about Felix, and I will reply in monosyllables because my grasp of the language is weak, and he will find me uninteresting and perhaps wonder where my manic childhood energy has gone. And even if he says it aloud, I will not answer, because sometimes I indulge in asking myself the same question before remembering that I don’t yearn for any of it, the past, the innocence, the blankness of my young mind. things about the ex: it was wednesday morning and i put on a khaki halter dress with a poufy flared skirt, completely not my style anymore, but i did it because it made me look like i had boobs and a little wasp waist and he always liked it when i looked extra feminine, and i wore the tan gladiator heels that i knew he especially liked. i was good at looking the way he wanted me to, when i felt like it. i sat on the back porch with him, where just three months before, he'd kissed me on my birthday and cut slices out of a cake that paige and udbhav had brought for me. we sat there, me in my ineffectual silly dress that i hated and heels, and he said i look pretty but he doesn't love me now or can't. a small victory and a big loss. then my crying was getting too loud i suppose so then we were in his room on the mattress on the floor and my eyeliner and mascara were matted against the pillow as i slept with my skirts all billowed out around me, waiting in some awful way for the verdict—shall we be or shan't we—as the sun was hot and also still through the shutters. i was inches away from him and i dreamt about kissing his collarbone and brushing lint out of his hair. we woke up and he shook his head and i wanted to cry some more to make him still feel bad but i was too tired and starting to feel ridiculous. my head kept nodding as if understanding the situation would make it feel less awful. i didn't know how to react to this humiliation and i said "okay" and i wanted to make it hurt more. things get shitty so I’m compelled to make them worse, at least then I can say I’ve committed to the ultimate suck. i said, "be honest, did you meet someone at orientation?" his sheepish expression on his not-handsome face. i smiled except it might have been more like a snarl and i said, "who the fuck?" and i laughed, sounding years older than what i'd been seconds ago. "that's it," he said and i wasn't confused at all, i understood exactly what was "it." "it's done, did you feel that? we are no longer us. you're different. you look different." yes, i wanted to scream at him, i'm different, i'm no longer your baby kitten sweetpea honeymuffin because i fucking can't be anymore and it hurts less to be the cold bitchy ex with a biting sarcastic sense of humor. i'm different because i'm forcing myself to be for your fucking sake and i look different because this blackness in my eyes is the sight of me killing not my love for you but the entire part of me that still loves you, i look different because i'm trying to squeeze the magnitude of the past two years out of what feels like my spleen and i don't know what else i can do. "who is she? is she asian?" "yes. her name is linda." "you know, you suck." "no, you suck." "what?" he meant that literally and i laughed when he unzipped his pants. there was absolutely nothing acceptable about this situation and it was hilarious and excruciating and suffocating. i had never known how to love him but i still knew how to wrap my lips around his cock and pinch his nipples and tighten my cunt as my ass bounced against his hipbones. i made the mistake of trying to kiss him at one point and he looked away, more irritated than pained. he stuck a highlighter in my ass and made me come twice, and as he fucked me he said i'm a good pussy and he doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, and i responded with a black laugh that i'm still very good at. he struck me as somehow immediately more sexy now that he was no longer mine, now that he was indifferent and callous, now that my skirts were billowed over his stomach as i straddled him and he lit a cigarette, waving the smoke out the open window. we never had a first date but we had a last one, stopping first at CVS to pick up some plan B which i paid for and then going out for sushi. i wonder what the waitress thought of us, our long silences and my ruined makeup and our small bouts of slow laughter, and when finally he started tearing up and we had to ask for the check and leave. how many more times did we fuck after the fact? maybe once or twice at his house. in my car parked on his driveway at 5 am. i liked that i felt like a bitch and i liked him making me beg for things and i liked imagining how wrong he felt about all of this, his guilt and his dirt and his self-reproach, maybe self-hate. he came to my house once more before i left for college. he asked to see my tattoo and i showed him gleefully because i knew he hated it. i was on my period but i pushed him down onto the sofa and pulled his pants down to his knees. he tried halfheartedly to stop me at one point. i was determined to make him to feel once more what he would never have again—my mouth, my eagerness, my obsessive libido. as always i swallowed neatly and he looked disgusted and i gave his shrinking cock a little pat. after he left i thought about screaming or hitting something or maybe crying some more but finally i settled on rolling my eyes and feeling once again faintly ridiculous. chicago this is the smallest kind of sadness, the saddest sort of small sadness, when you are self-consciously sad even while you're telling yourself not to be sad, to get un-sad, to get glad—or to get a grip—when your shoulders are aching from the backpack that has everything you have and you're walking alone on a silent street after having donated, in defeat, a precious $50 to an overly enthused LGBT canvasser who you didn't have the energy to refuse, when you're lying clothes, boots on, on one of the two beds in the too-huge hotel suite you booked at a 65% discount, and think—this is the kind of moment that people write poetry about, or maybe short stories, sad writings that try to wax insightful about the failure of human connections and broken communication—except it's your life and there's a boy/man-boy/whatever-he-is-to-you-now lying next to you whacking you with a pillow because that's the sort of thing he does, who won't kiss you now because he's gotten nervous about "hurting" you, when he asks: "do you think we're intimate?" and you give him some self-deprecating, amusing, noncommittal response because you can't tell the truth because the truth is stupid and you've known it all along and he says quietly not looking at you, "i'm worried that you miss me too much" and you want to say don't bother worrying about it, it's the sort of thing that hurt since the beginning that hurts all the fucking time, which essentially amounts to it not hurting at all because it's the sort of thing you live with, and let it make a home inside you so every morning when you wake up you say hello hurt, good morning, are you ready for another amiable day spent together, and you want to say "hey, don't worry, you're not going to hurt me by kissing or fucking or saying you love me now because i've been figuratively clawing at my own throat from the moment i decided to call you up the first night we met, i've been indulging myself in plenty of dumb self-harm, don't you worry about hurting me because it won't make a flopping fucking difference at this point," but instead you say, "yeah probably. it's stupid. i'm silly. i know i'm silly." and the way you sum it up, you put on your nonchalant laugh-at-me-tone and say, "so just be straight, am i right, i'm a sometimes-friend who you feel sexually open with" and that sentence makes something in you not explode or crash or even crumble but rather it wilts softly and you're breathing too fast as you try to chuckle but your lungs are too tight and he squeezes your cheeks so you make funny bunny faces and says, "you're cute. and talented. and interesting. "and i don't want to hurt you" and it's all the same deal that you knew since the beginning and believed it too but maybe refused to actually heed it and this has all been a big mistake, when you try to turn a wonderful incident into something regular in your life you just spoil the whole thing and mix problems and mundaneness into the marvel until everything that was marvelous gets so diluted that it's all just the same as the rest of the crap you never cared about and it's just that his eyes are too fucking blue and in the morning when he gets out of bed with an obvious hard-on and immediately starts dressing, that's when you feel the spiraling sense of loss, the ending of something, the closing, a silence, and you pull on your panties with a soft sigh of defeat because there's nothing more to say or try and what you think about is not the sex or the cum or the slapping or the biting or the choking but it's running your hands through his hair that needs a haircut and kissing the corners of his closed eyes but by then the curtains are open, the sirens outside are too loud, and the room is too bright and there's a red line to catch things you could think about a girl i’m biking home from the library at midnight, down forsyth, and i have my backpack stuffed with my books for bio and psych and econ and there’s someone sitting on the steps of the art school. i’m not sure at first if it’s a guy or girl because there’s a mohawk and ambiguous plaid jacket and orange high tops but then i’m sure it must be a girl from the way she’s sitting curled up shivering and i think i see a bow in her hair. she’s smoking a cigarette and i wonder what she’s doing out here so late the night of WILD but then i realize i’m staring so i look away. i wonder if i could see her up close if she might be pretty, or beautiful even, aside from the punkass look and i wonder why she does herself up that way, maybe to catch the attention of random people like myself. i look back at her looking at me and she’s taking a drag of the cigarette, a tiny orange light in the darkish distance and i wonder if she’s a virgin and she’s probably not, virgins don’t wear skintight printed pants like that with their legs splayed out like an unknowing invitation. i wonder what she thinks of boys here. if she fucks them. or a lot of them. i think about maybe all the meaningless sober fucks or drunken fucks she’s put herself through and even accidental calamitous fucks she hasn’t had the heart to refuse or maybe it was a messed up way of trying to punish herself for something unexplained that she doesn’t realize but is. i figure she’s probably had one or two encounters that she had no intention of becoming meaningful but couldn’t help it anyway and hated herself for that weakness of liking a boy and, thinking about jean rhys’ voyage in the dark, kicked herself at every beginning of an inkling of attachment because she knew it was setting up for eventual sadness and while her friends told her not to be jaded she turned out to be right each time but was sad nonetheless, and sadder when her usually happy-go-lucky drug dealer/friend suggested that she might be fatalistic because it was probably true and she wasn’t sure about what she could do except exacerbate that affliction. i wonder if she’s at the point that she won’t let herself react outwardly and even inwardly with anything but laughter at her life’s small tragedies because she feels like she doesn’t deserve to feel bad because she’s obsessed with the idea of accountability and she knows she has in one way or another placed herself in every unsavory situation that has hit her. and then i wonder if before all of this it was different for her, there was a boy she loved dearly whom she hurt dearly who hurt her dearly. someone she loved furiously unhealthily and maybe considered or was happily resigned to spending the rest of her life with, who doted on her and cherished her and made her lunch every day and blew raspberries on her stomach and shared his broken childhood with her semi-broken childhood, and who turned out not to be what she was convinced he was and while planning to fuck the other girl who was more of an idol-worshipper than a friend to the girl, made the girl buy a plan b and then take it in front of him because he was convinced that were she to get pregnant she’d keep the baby and reveal it to him 12 years down the line because he knows the girl was still in love with him and he liked this, because for once he had the upper hand, he now cared about her less than she cared about him. i think maybe the boy never knew about that hot and lonely day in her bathroom without air conditioning when her sweat dripped onto that little stick that was the wrong color and she felt betrayed by her sex ed class in high school because wasn’t this supposed to work, she hadn’t done it wrong, and then how she sadly looked at the depleted figure in her chase bank account, what was left of what she’d saved from the job he used to visit her at, after all the gifts and clothes she’d bought for him, and how she laughed a little sadly and thought about what if i let this happen and made both his and my worst dreams come true but i’d love that thing like no other, wouldn’t i, and it’d be cute and beautiful like everyone always said it would be, but in the end she went alone alternately biting and pursing her lips that were chapped because she’d forgotten her lip balm because that wasn’t important now, and felt the coldness of a tube and the loneliness of bleeding out in the recovery room and the heavy void of having lost all of him, every last drop, completely and absolutely and in such sterile cleanness with some beeping noises in the background. i think about the six pounds she must have lost from not having an appetite for a week afterward and the listlessness she felt in the first weeks of college and how displaced she felt after fucking the first guy who was not him, followed by the second the very night after, and when i finally look away from her still taking that puff on that cancer stick i think maybe i’ll stop and go over to tell her that’s shit for you, that will kill you and not like some emotionally immature boy but for real and i hope you’re not doing it in some subconscious association with pregnant people not being able to smoke, and i think maybe after saying that or instead of saying that i’ll tell her my name and we’ll exchange numbers and i’ll cherish that shaved little head of hers and the hands stained with ink and i’ll make sure she never has to go through that solitary ordeal again. but the weight of the books in my backpack is still heavy on me and my legs are still pumping on the pedals and i’ve looked away and i don’t even know if she’s actually pretty or not, and soon i’m gone and so is she. on fallibility for a long time i saw adults and figures of authority as having impossibly fixed fronts. they had kids and invited my brother to their weddings and drove VW bugs but were still all unassailably non-human. at some point and i don’t know what point this changed, and that’s about when i no longer knew how to commit to my role as student-cog-in-society because damn, this woman who’s grading this test i’m taking, her mother just died and she has a bit of an alcohol problem and hasn’t been laid in 10 months and she’s watching misfits at the same time that i’m watching it, so how now do i view this exam as an exam and not a subliminal letter of understanding or, on my more evil days, gloating triumph, to this woman i shouldn’t know but do? things like the vice principal is going through grad school, or when i’m telling my french teacher my excuse about the homework even as i know last night i was wasted with her son, i mean school’s not really school, it’s a funny place in life where people are inclined to interact in weird nonsensical ways in an easily-crumbled hierarchy of authority. in college it’s more pronounced, it actually seems impossible to not know the personals of my advisors, my professors. my lit professor likes fucking his wife outdoors (or did until they got too busy taking care of the baby), my 2d professor digs acid and white powdery things and goes to gallery openings alone, my 3d professor chain-smokes which is the only thing he does anymore, being in AA and having overcome basically every kind of drug dependency there is. my advisor calls me in and we chat about my schedule and how i’ve been feeling post-ER, and my spring break plans (seeing “friends”), and i know that even though she has 2 biological daughters (who have adopted cambodian kids), and was married at one point, that her longtime lover was a woman who died a year ago and it makes me a little sad that we will never speak about this. sometimes i don’t miss but wonder about the days that adults and strangers and workers all seemed infallible and infinitely capable of performing their assigned tasks as parents teachers cab drivers undertakers because then something happens like sarkozy marries carla bruni and that throws you out of whack because what the fuck these worlds should never cross, and then you realize that’s an idiotic thought because of course they cross, it’s all just people I must have been five or six when I first met the man who lived in my grandparents’ Hangzhou flat. I was told to call him Uncle, but in China, all men are called... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/fuck-bitches-get-faces http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/fuck-bitches-get-faces Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:38:10 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 3252376 pan, the boy december 2011 48 x 36 inches oil on canvas $700<img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/victor pan.jpg" width="670" height="885" width_o="2048" height_o="2707" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/victor pan_o.jpg" data-mid="16664866" border="0" align="left"/> yet out- not over-doing february 2012 24 x 18 inches mixed media on paper $450<img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/3.jpg" width="670" height="866" width_o="900" height_o="1164" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/3_o.jpg" data-mid="16664857" border="0" align="left"/> laundry-bones: to dirt (to mush) april 2012 6.5 x 4.25 ft mixed media on paper price upon request<img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/laundrybones.jpg" width="670" height="1020" width_o="2048" height_o="3118" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/laundrybones_o.jpg" data-mid="16775433" border="0" align="left"/> untitled 2011 36 x 48 inches charcoal on paper $300<img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/377051_10150539062603083_891970473_n.jpg" width="670" height="512" width_o="960" height_o="734" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/377051_10150539062603083_891970473_n_o.jpg" data-mid="24449752" border="0" align="left"/> touch me flip me: cautionary flashcards for a better self october 2012 40 x 40 inches mixed media on paper $350 <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/touch me flip me.jpg" width="638" height="960" width_o="638" height_o="960" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/touch me flip me_o.jpg" data-mid="24412467" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/touch me flip me2.jpg" width="670" height="445" width_o="960" height_o="638" src_o="http://payload47.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/3252376/touch me flip me2_o.jpg" data-mid="24412468" border="0" align="left"/> pan, the boy december 2011 48 x 36 inches oil on canvas $700 yet out- not over-doing february 2012 24 x 18 inches mixed media on paper $450 laundry-bones: to... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/upset-beings http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/upset-beings Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:31:18 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 1296769 The Miser's Indulgence 2010 18 x 24 inches oil $500 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/The Miser_s Indulgence.jpg" width="670" height="862" width_o="1500" height_o="1932" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/The Miser_s Indulgence_o.jpg" data-mid="6279831" border="0" align="left"/> On Judgment 2011 15 x 30 inches oil/shellac $600<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/19.jpg" width="670" height="1294" width_o="1800" height_o="3479" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/19_o.jpg" data-mid="16664726" border="0" align="left"/> The Verdict 2011 20 x 28 inches oil $500<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/the verdict2.jpg" width="670" height="932" width_o="2048" height_o="2850" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/the verdict2_o.jpg" data-mid="16664733" border="0" align="left"/> Paroxysm 2010 22 x 28 inches oil $500<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/Paroxysm.jpg" width="670" height="861" width_o="2000" height_o="2572" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296769/Paroxysm_o.jpg" data-mid="16664729" border="0" align="left"/> The Miser's Indulgence 2010 18 x 24 inches oil $500 On Judgment 2011 15 x 30 inches oil/shellac $600 The Verdict 2011 20 x 28 inches oil $500 Paroxysm 2010 22... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/sex-and-sadness http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/sex-and-sadness Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:19:48 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 1296732 Don't Rip 2011 acrylic/textiles 16 x 20 inches $400 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/14.jpg" width="670" height="838" width_o="2048" height_o="2563" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/14_o.jpg" data-mid="6279663" border="0" align="left"/> Your Pincushion 2011 acrylic/textiles 20 x 28 inches $400 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/18.jpg" width="670" height="896" width_o="1700" height_o="2275" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/18_o.jpg" data-mid="6279643" border="0" align="left"/> you are my s.t.f.u. pleasure 2011 mixed media 20 x 28 inches $400<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/last.jpg" width="670" height="885" width_o="1100" height_o="1453" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/last_o.jpg" data-mid="16664806" border="0" align="left"/> here is my lively animal 2011 acrylic/mixed 16 x 40 inches $550 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/8 2.jpg" width="670" height="1630" width_o="1397" height_o="3400" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/8 2_o.jpg" data-mid="16664800" border="0" align="left"/> shutterbug 2011 mixed media 36 x 24 inches $700<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/shutterbug.jpg" width="670" height="450" width_o="2048" height_o="1375" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296732/shutterbug_o.jpg" data-mid="16664803" border="0" align="left"/> Don't Rip 2011 acrylic/textiles 16 x 20 inches $400 Your Pincushion 2011 acrylic/textiles 20 x 28 inches $400 you are my s.t.f.u. pleasure 2011 mixed media 20 x... http://cargocollective.com/couyang/tenuous-things http://cargocollective.com/couyang/following/couyang/tenuous-things Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:00:20 +0000 Catalina Ouyang 1296672 We Are Friends 2010 mixed media 29" x 40" price upon request <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/6.jpg" width="670" height="903" width_o="2000" height_o="2696" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/6_o.jpg" data-mid="6279860" border="0" align="left"/> The Malaised Youth 2010 mixed media 42" x 38" sold<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/14.jpg" width="670" height="495" width_o="2030" height_o="1500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/14_o.jpg" data-mid="6279248" border="0" align="left"/> I Am Not Dead Girl 2010 mixed media 29" x 48" $700<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/11.jpg" width="670" height="500" width_o="1704" height_o="1272" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/11_o.jpg" data-mid="16664690" border="0" align="left"/> Egotist Rising 2010 mixed media 32" x 40" $700<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/20.jpg" width="670" height="960" width_o="1500" height_o="2151" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/20_o.jpg" data-mid="16664691" border="0" align="left"/> Rapunzel Shed Your Skin 2010 mixed media 34" x 30" $700<img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/3.jpg" width="670" height="563" width_o="1784" height_o="1500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/98056/1296672/3_o.jpg" data-mid="6279464" border="0" align="left"/> We Are Friends 2010 mixed media 29" x 40" price upon request The Malaised Youth 2010 mixed media 42" x 38" sold I Am Not Dead Girl 2010 mixed media 29" x 48" ...